Photo Credit: Our very own Samantha Wismer
The Phantoms fell to the Hershey Bears in their last pre-Season game of this season. Moving forward, all the games count and the Phantoms need to step it up, especially when going against their arch rivals the Hershey Bears. Hershey has a strong team, and their goaltending is very good. Let’s break down last night and the final pre-season game. Scratched players last night for Lehigh Valley were: Maksim Sushko, Matthew Strome, Ryan MacKinnon, Garrett Wilson, Nick Seeler, and Tyson Foerster.
1st Period:
German Rubstov made his first appearance of the pre-season, along with Jackson Cates making his Phantoms debut. With just a little under three minutes into the game, Linus Högberg send the Phantoms into the first Penalty Kill of the night for high sticking. Morgan Frost, Max Willman, Cam York, and Adam Clendening made up Penalty Killing Unit 1 last night with Connor Bunnaman, Linus Sandin, Max Millman, and Logan Day being the second unit. With just a little over halfway into the 1st, the game was scoreless and the Phantoms had one shot on goal and Hershey had zero. The Phantoms Isaac Ratcliffe would have made the game 1-0 at this point, but the call was reviewed and it was deemed no goal because the puck, while it hit the line, did not cross completely. End of the 1st, game was scoreless, and the shots on goal were in favor of the Phantoms 6-5.
2nd Period:
With just a little under three minutes into the midway, Ryan Dmwoski of Hershey, had a loose puck and pushed it past Felix Sandström making the game 1-0. Cam York was tripped by Hershey and it sent the Phantoms into the 3rd Powerplay of the night. Isaac Ratcliffe and Ben Hawerchuk of Hershey, decided to throw the gloves down. Ratcliffe took 3 good shots at Hawerchuk, it was a one-sided fight, and Ratcliffe’s physical side was a welcome sight to fans. It was something you don’t see often from Isaac. This all stemmed from the cross check that was given to Captain Cal O’Reilly, Ratcliffe was just defending his Captain, but the Phantoms had to kill a huge penalty for Brennan Saulnier for stepping up for O’ Reilly. With a little over six minutes left in the second, the score was 1-0. There were only nine shots on goal for the Phantoms at the end of two periods of play.
3rd Period:
The Phantoms were 0-5 on power plays at this point of the game. Eddie Wittchow received a penalty for interfering with Linus Sandin. There was only close to 10 minutes left during the last regulation period. It really showed last night that either they need to practice the PP/PK units, or there is just zero chemistry with the units that were put together for this game. Aliaksei Protas get the puck and shot it past Sandstrom, made the game 2-0. Sandstrom was pulled from net, and just a minute later, Shane Gersich from Hershey netted an empty net goal. Sandin tripped behind Hershey’s net and sent Lehigh Valley into their last power play of the night.
Lastly, the Phantoms fell 3-0 to Hershey, while they finished the pre-season just 1-3. This next game counts, every game going forward, counts. The season opener starts in Wilkes-Barre, this Saturday, October 16th, at the Mohegan Sun Arena at 6:05pm.
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